Finding Chemo

We met yesterday with the newest member of the team. He's a perky fellow at the Pediatric Oncology Clinic who uses big words like "puke" to make Ashley laugh. After testing the limits of his patience by asking 328 questions (most answered with a "we're not sure" or "we don't really know the answer to that yet"), we uncovered a wealth of information regarding my chemotherapy treatment. To save everyone the effort of trying to decipher the details from the sarcasm, I'm just going to list them.

• Chemo will involve doxorubicin and ifosfomide
• These agents will attack fast growing normal cells and cancer cells
• Normal fast growing cells would include cells found in the hair, mucus membrane, bone marrow
• The treatments will go in three week cycles
• There will be 6 cycles for a total of 18 weeks
• Chemo will be administered through an access port that will be surgically inserted into a major blood vessel in my neck.
• The port comes out after the treatment is over
• The port wine goes in after the recovery is over
• Potential side effects include permanent heart and kidney damage, but are unlikely (less than 5%)
• Hair loss and "puking" are pretty standard
• I'll typically spend 3 or 4 nights in the hospital after a treatment
• My immune system will be down the first week and require me to be careful about infection and getting sick
• This is a one shot deal. Remaining cancer will be resistant or unaffected in the first place
• My type of cancer has a 30% chance being eradicated by the chemo
• The smaller the groups of cells treated, the more likely they are to be completely eliminated if they respond. (The earlier the better)
• Chemo will begin the end of August after the surgery

That's a thick steak to swallow, I know. Adding whether or not to do it because "we don't know for sure if it spread but there is a 30% chance it has" to the decision process makes one hell of a sauce to top it off.

All jokes aside, this step is pretty serious and intense. We're still extremely positive and very optimistic.

To help ease the down time along, Dad has offered to read "the classics" to me in the hospital. His hope is to learn us Wilson boys on all the great literary works that neither of us have ever had the pleasure of being exposed on more than a Cliff's Notes level.

Gut laughing at him, I refused adamantly and told him I had notified hospital security to deny access to any book older that 12 months and most definitely anything that included the words quixote, expectation, dick, grapes, musketeer, war, peace, moby, and without a doubt pride or prejudice.

Actually a little Homer or Mark Twain my be decent between the CSI Miami marathons.

As always, thank you, sincerely, for everything.

If you have ANY questions, feel free to axe.